“Man cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Bonsoir, mes amies. Tonight I embark upon a journey into times long past that I had thought were almost forgotten. Ah, but how can I ever truly put it all behind me? The past is so much a part of who I am that to disregard it would be to turn my back on the very essence of Nicolas de Lenfent and to dampen the flame that burns within me. The ghostly recollections are seared painfully into my soul and many leave a distinctly bitter taste in my mouth. They are twisted like a vine of thorns around my heart and without them I am nothing but an empty void. As each thorn pierces deep into my core I bleed out the memories of nearly two and a half centuries. The pain lets me know that I am still alive.

Now, I’m certain that you have heard this tale before, yet within those pages there was much that remained unsaid. The adventures and happenings in the lives of two impetuous young men in the city that swallowed them whole cannot be folded into a few simple chapters. There is so much more to it than that. Paris was an awakening or sorts, a time of so many transformations. It was the end of my days ad a spoilt and favoured rich boy and the beginning of something sublime and life changing.

Why do I chose now to recount this tale? It began with a simple nudging from an old friend, a challenge of sorts, to tell the tale the way I see it. Now it has evolved into a quest to set free the demons from the past that torment me every time I close my eyes, and to exorcise the old ghosts that still whisper my name in the darkness. I don’t write this for you, or for him, I write it for me, for Nicolas. That selfish bastard that lurks deep within me needs to remember it all. For the sake of my own waning sanity I must piece together the shattered fragments of the past and make them into something whole again. I want to recreate the events so vividly in my mind that I will be able to feel as though I am actually there again, in the Paris of 1779. I want to smell the putrid air of the city. I want to taste the wine and I want to feel the waves of unbridled emotion as they wash over me and threaten to pull me under. I often cling to these memories as though they are the only thread that sustains me in this rapidly changing world.

Somewhere in this city for a considerably brief time everything had meaning. A blaze of light cut through that all encompassing darkness and showed me what it was to really live. When I think back on it now, despite all the bitterness in my soul and the resentment that will never fade entirely, I can’t help but smile. Paris was hell on earth and yet I found a glimpse of paradise. Set aside the cold nights, an often empty stomach and a poverty unlike anything I had ever experienced before and you will find, hiding behind that outwardly cynical surface a profound and yet short lived happiness. Despite how it may seem there was once a time when I felt the spark of hope that can only come from being completely and unequivocally free. The possibility of a brighter future sprang from the depths of my despair.

Nothing lasts forever.